Less than a week after the White House paused the shipment of 3,500 bombs to Tel Aviv, Joe Biden’s administration has notified Congress that it will send a package valued at $1.25 billion in weapons to Israel, according to an exclusive from The Wall Street Journal. The assistance includes $700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, according to officials cited by the US media.
The executive wants to reduce the tension generated with Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet since Biden learned of the plan to attack the city of Rafah, south of Gaza, with a large-scale bombing campaign. The red line remains on the announced invasion, which he considers is not taking place, despite the fact that he assesses that there are enough Israeli Defense Forces installed on the border to carry it out.
The State Department acknowledged Friday in a report commissioned by Biden that it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel has violated international humanitarian law in seven months of military offensive in Gaza. However, he considered that they do not have sufficient evidence that American weapons have been used for this, so he decided not to block the shipment of weapons to the Hebrew state. Although the report was critical of Israel, which “has not shared complete information to verify” human rights violations with its weapons, the decision not to restrict future shipments marked the beginning of detente with Netanyahu.
Israel, the country that has received the most US foreign aid since World War II, receives $3.8 billion each year, to which will be added the additional assistance of $26 billion approved last month in Congress. The progressive sector of the Democratic Party, which asked Biden to produce the report, asks that military assistance be conditioned on respect for international law, as US law has mandated since the Cold War. Specifically, it prohibits the shipment of weapons to third countries that “involve a consistent pattern of serious violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
“We will continue to send military aid,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at a news conference Monday. “We have paused a shipment of 2,000-pound (907 kilo) bombs because we do not believe they should be dropped in densely populated cities.” Israel began bombing northern Gaza, warning its inhabitants to evacuate the area to the south, and last week sent another evacuation notice from Rafah, where approximately one million people are located, 600,000 of them children, according to Unicef. .
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, condemned on Sunday the new operation in Rafah and the forced displacement ordered “for an already traumatized population.” The new operation would have already left 278,000 displaced, including “wounded, disabled and chronically ill.” Turk considers these actions “irreconcilable” with international law.
An independent Amnesty International report last month assessed that Israel is using US weapons “in serious violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and in a manner incompatible with US law and policy.” An example cited is the bombing of the Jabalya refugee camp on October 9, which left 39 victims, two days after the Hamas incursion into Israel.
Biden’s decision to resume attendance, advanced by WSJ and without official confirmation, comes as college students across the country continue to protest against the bloodshed in Gaza and against their universities’ financial ties to Israel. The police have already arrested more than 2,800 people and have managed to dismantle some camps, while others have demobilized following agreements with the rectors. But the indignation of young people and Arabs continues and could make re-election difficult for Biden if he maintains his military support.
